Cranes at Creamer's Field

(Above, 80+ birds flying as seen from the Coffee Roaster's Thursday.)

We spent the beautiful Saturday afternoon at Farmer's Market, then at Creamer's field (a migratory bird refuge), then picking raspberries at a local raspberry farm (our own are finished, we need more bushes at home!). A few pics from Creamer's field.






There were many Canada Geese on the ground. We also saw a bird of prey try to get one of the birds on the ground, unsuccessfully. Five years ago when Martin's sister + partner were visiting here, we saw one get a duck. Should spend a bit more time over there one of these years.

Car camping on upper Chena

Three moms, five kids, three dogs, one night on upper chena river.

Bummer was Sonja was not feeling well, so she didn't play much on Friday, and I rolled my ankle.

Friday night:

Lucie and Emilie hard at play.

Dogs and kids are off and away, moms remain.

Bald eagle.

Saturday morning, very foggy until the sun was high enough to burn the fog off.

Two ravens bugged a bald eagle, and periodically one or both checked us out.

Car camping at its finest. Allows one to bring everything ut the kitchen sink. Neither the kitchen sink, nor the husband, would have fit inside my car, it was too full already (not pictured :).

The trees lean any which way into the water. Cassidy, Sonja and Lucy are bundled up.

Saphira and the almost-burned-off fog.

Emilie's two!

Last week, we went to Pioneer park to celebrate Emilies birthday. Beautiful sunny day. Liz and Grace joined us for a fun-filled hour or two before we headed home.

At the fair

The fair came and went very fast, and we barely managed to visit it on the last day it was open - Saturday a week ago. It being Alaskan fair, there were not only the chickens and bunnies and pigs and goats on display, but also some reindeer.

The petting zoo had goats that were determined to get the first and last piece of straw from the girls' hands. The girls loved it.

(and yes, since it was fair-time, it was raining...)

A how-to for IKEA delivery to Fairbanks

One reason for going to kids birthday parties is that you can get all sorts of information out of them. E.g. last weekend: after querying about an item in the house, I found out that the item arrived from IKEA, and that the description on how to do it can be found on someone's blog. Searching google-blogs hits the jackpot:

http://bahamasonthebrain.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/ikea-hits-the-al-can/
or a how-to for getting IKEA to deliver to Fairbanks. Or other places without IKEAs.

That time of year...

Dropping Sonja off at her daycare, we now regularly see birds flying. Geese. Or cranes out on the field below the university. Closer to the ground, there are one or two yellow leaves on a tree here or there...the fall is in the air. Coming closer and closer. That time of the year.

(The stick in that picture is an antenna on the university fire department building, which is right next to Sonja's daycare.)

Moose

Most of the fireweed is blooming close to the top. Except by our shady house, some fireweed is only starting to bloom.

Why did the moose cross the road...?

May be it was going to trade in our clunker of a car for cash. Though we should give it the truck, not the subaru, for that purpose :).

Drumming

Martin took a beginning drumming class during the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. At the end, the class, together with the various other percussion classes, had a performance. We went to see their rehearsal. The kids loved it. Danced in the back.

Martin is somewhere there on the photo (back row, looking at the instructor):


It was great. We wil really have to expose our kids to more music and artsy fartsy stuff.

Upper Chena picnic

A week ago Sarka and her husband invited us to join them for a picnic on a gravel bar of the upper Chena River. We did, and had a wonderful time. The gravelbar was close to the Granite Tors trailhead.

Kids ran around. Dogs had fun too (one at a time, to make sure they didn't disappear). Adults mainly sat around.

Sarka and George shared really good moose sausage with us. And we had some pizza dough, cooked over the fire, too - instead of wrapping it around a stick, we put it into one of the fish grills. It came out great.
Setting up:

The kids: Lucka, Kacka, Sonja, Emilka. Sonja is still wearing the ductape crown form the previous weekend's Red and Green River Regatta.

The men putting away the folding table. I just love the drunken trees in the background.

I am so glad that the air quality is unhealthy

Everything is relative. Right now, the air quality is unhealthy. Great! Yay, that's good to hear! Wahoo! (my responses to the unhealthy level)

"Unhealthy" is great to hear in comparison with what we had been through. In the last couple days, the air quality has been "very unhealthy" (a step above "unhealthy"), and even "hazardous" for a couple hours last night, due to the smoke from the forest fires all around us, so to have a plain "unhealthy" condition is almost a pleasure. Everything is relative...

It did help that it rained last night and today. First true rainfall in a month. Much needed.


Fallout of ash on our car during one night.


Sun.


View from the west ridge of the university onto the field below. Geist Road would be in the background, if it would be visible.


Ashcloud above our house. The light was real strange.